Slideshare

Slideshare has been described as You Tube without video. It is a free, website that lets users upload PowerPoint, Open Office, and PDF files to share on the web. It converts your presentation into a Flash format allowing it to be viewed without requiring the original presentation software. It is turned into a Slideshare.Slideshares can be viewed by millions in the world or by groups you select. You can set up your Slideshare to be just viewed or downloaded for free. In turn some Slideshares can be downloaded for free giving you access to a variety of content.

The site offers thousands of presentations on a variety of topics. You can search by themes or conduct your own open ended search.

What are the infrastructure and technical requirements for this tool?

The site is easy to navigate. Sign up is quick and easy. You can view and upload sites right away. There is an endless amount of Slideshares to view . You can use the prescribed buttons to search (latest, most viewed, etc.)or type in what you might want to view.It does take time as conduct your search to view Slideshare presentations.

There is a community aspect to Slideshare which gives you the opportunity to create a list of friends. This allows you to restrict the viewing of your Slideshare. It can as open or limiting as you prefer.

You may need some tech skills in order to embed a Slideshare on your website or blog.

How can you use it effectively in instruction?

It can be a vehicle to share ideas and learn from others.The travel and tourism theme allows teachers access to other cultures.

The implications for instruction seem to be somewhat limiting for the elementary school arena.

What are other education applications for this tool?

I would imagine that there would be some opportunities to use some of the Slideshares as a means for professional development such as a PowerPoint tutorial.

Perhaps an older age group past high school might find use for political, social, or regional content to be viewed.

You can use the site as a vehicle to archive large presentations. These presentations can be made available to be viewed by a specified audience i.e. staff.

It can be used to keep parents apprised of school activities such as field trips, class parties, etc. that cannot be attended by all parents. This would be only if BCPS would allow you to embed Slideshares on your website.

What are the limitations and cautions related to use of this tool?

Caution: You would not want to have students K-12 accessing this site. They can easily access inappropriate content from this site as well as clicking on links to lead to other unacceptable content on the web. Teachers would require a safer site to use with students.

Limitation: 1. Time is needed to explore the content available. It is important to preview the Slideshares thoroughly before intended use. I was looking at a Slideshare for PowerPoint and one of the slides suggested that slides need to be sexy. 2. Slideshare by itself does not have audio capability. An update to this is called Slidecasting which allows for audio/video input. 3. Once you upload a file to be converted you are unable to edit and make changes.

What are the management considerations for this tool?

This site can convert large files otherwise not possible to send through email.

Users may use the site for storage of presentations.

There are thousands of presentations and teachers would need to spend a great deal of time first searching and then viewing for content.

I do think it could be used with high school students more than the younger children. Teachers could use the site for content information in a variety of topics. I feel the site is too open ended for children to access on their own from school or home. At this time our use of PowerPoint seems to be as good of a media tool as slideshare. Do you know anyone that uses it and how they incorporate it into the k-12 learning environment?